Lesson Learned from Having a Deadline

It's been almost a year since I was contacted by the Art Committee of the Orcas Performing Arts Center and asked if I would hang an exhibit of my art quilts in the lobby gallery.  I was so pleased to be asked that I immediately said YES! However, when I got off the phone, I was a little freaked out because I only had 4 or 5 of quilts. on hand.  YIKES.  That was not nearly enough to fill the gallery.  I almost called the committee woman back to tell her I couldn't do it.


But I really wanted to do the show, so rather than make that call, I decided I needed to become much more disciplined with my work, and produce a body of work.  I know artist who produce an astounding 10 or 12 pieces a year.  I was averaging three. 

So, I rolled up my sleeves, oiled my sewing machine, and set to work.  I had no shortage of potential projects.  I had pages of sketches and ideas, some dating back years.  Honestly, my biggest barrier was simply my irregular studio hours.

I once worked for a principal who used to say you can do or learn anything if you simply work at it one hour a day, every day.  He had examples of people who became fluent in a foreign language, wrote a novel, learned to musical instrument--all by spending one hour a day just doing it!   One hour is barely enough time for me to figure out what I'm doing, so I chunked my time a little differently.

My husband and I took a couple trips this past year which knocked out about 6 weeks of work time, but whenever we were home, I spent at least 4 hours a day in my studio for a minimum of 3 days a week, but most often 5 to 6 days a week.  I have never been so disciplined as I was this past year, and I found it very rewarding.  Instead of putting my art in last place in my list of priorities, I put it near the top of the list.

What I learned from this practice:

• I often used to let a piece sit for months if I came to a sticking point.  This last year I hit lots of problem spots as I worked on pieces, but since a deadline loomed, I was forced to think about it constantly.  I wrestled with the problem not only in my work room, but at night as I was falling asleep, in the morning on my run, sitting in the car on the ferry, pretty much 24/7.  When a problem is front and center like that, and a deadline is on the horizon, it's amazing how quickly a solution or two pops into your head.

• Keeping a studio journal is very helpful.  Before I left my studio for the day, I tried to jot down notes on what I needed to do the next day, and I'd set out fabric, thread, paint, whatever, ready to work the next day.  This saved a lot of dithering time--I'm a good ditherer!  I didn't always used the plan from the previous work session, but even rejecting an idea has a certain momentum:  If not that, then what??

• Other people may be able to work in fits and starts, but I found I was most productive and most creative if I had an uninterrupted 3 to 4 hours.  Stopping to get a cup of tea, or throw some laundry in the washer, or answer the phone broke my concentration in ways that did not serve me well.  After each interruption it would take me time to reorient myself and get started again.  

So time's up.  I hang my show two days from today, and I feel ready.  I borrowed back two pieces I had sold earlier, and I completed 7 new pieces this past year. 

November 2016, Before They Knew

The morning of the 2016 election my daughter took this selfie with her daughter to commemorate what they thought was going to be a historic day:  The election of the first woman president.

Unfortunately, that day ended with the election of a man that we felt would be harmful to every single thing we cared about--the environment, working people, women, immigrants, people of color, education, and basic human decency.

My daughter is wearing a brooch she inherited from my mother, Ella Gaquin--a woman born before women could vote.  My mother's mother, Thelma Watt, and my mother's grandmother, Minnie Hall, were both suffragettes in upstate New York.  Our family has a long history of feminine  activist.

This quilt has been a long time in the making, and I'm still not 100% happy with it--but it's done...at least for now. I plan to hang it in my show at the Orcas Center next week, along with 19 other pieces, so like it or not, I needed to complete it.

Orcas Ferry Landing Quilt

My latest quilt is called Home on the Late Boat, and depicts the Orcas ferry landing at night.  This is a small quilt, so it didn't take me half a lifetime to piece or stitch.  It will be one of the quilts in my show at the Orcas Center.  The builting is a little lopsided, but I like the light shining down on the Orcas sign.

I painted a piece of white Kona cotton with Intense color sticks to make the piece of light fabric under the letters.  I wanted that pool of yellow light that spread out to a cooler white, and couldn't get it by piecing fabric.  

The Deer Harbor Post Office Quilt

At long last, the Deer Harbor Post Office Quilt is finished.  The top stitching on this took as long or longer than the piecing.  Every time I make a quilt this large (41"x54") on my Bernina sewing machine, I swear it will be the last.  Wrestling a large quilt under the needle of a domestic sewing machine, even a relatively large domestic machine, is a physical challenge!

I'm fairly happy with this, though the porch light is too bright, and bugging me.  If I have the courage, I'll take some paint (Derwent Inktense sticks)  to it, and tone it down.

Storing Quilts: Now You've Made It, What Do You Do With It?

Like a lot of things, the topic of how to store a quilt has its share of strong opinions.  Method for storing a queen-size bed quilt usually differs from storing smaller, wall quilt, especially one that is heavily embellished.  Large quilts are generally folded, wrapped in archival tissue paper, and stored in boxes in a temperature controlled environment--which for most of us means inside our homes. 

Art quilts/wall quilts are a different kettle of fish.  Storage methods often depend on things like the type or amount of surface embellishment and the over-all size of the quilt.

All quilts, regardless of size or embellishment need to be stored away from direct light, in a dry, odor free place.  Small quilts, ones that are 2 feet by 2 feet or less, can be stored flat between layers of archival tissue paper in a drawer, box or on a shelf.  Most of my quilts are around four to five feet long/tall, so I go with the pool noodle school of storage.

I lay the quilt to be stored out on a table, look it over for any loose threads, or foreign objects that shouldn't be there, like an overlooked pin that could rust or snag something. 

Quilt face covered with tissue paper.

Then I cover the quilt top with layers of archival tissue paper.  Archival paper is more expensive than regular tissue paper, but especially if your quilt is going to be stored long term, it is worth the price.

I like to roll my quilts on swim noodles.  The swim noodles keep the quilt from compressing and creating fold lines.  Also, I can stand the quilt on end without the quilt itself touching the floor.  I keep my eyes peeled for deals on swim noodles, especially at the end of summer.  This fall Joann's Fabrics had a bunch of swim noodles for $1 each, so I stocked up.


Some people insist the quilt be rolled with the backing facing in.  Their rationale is that the quilt will then naturally curl toward the back, and therefore hang flatter on the wall.  I always feel it makes the quilt top more vulnerable to abrasion, dust or some other disaster, so I want the part I worked on for months to be as protected as possible. In my mind, that means rolling the quilt so the top is facing in and the backing is facing out.

To keep the quilt secured on the swim noodle, I use strips of bridal tulle to lightly tie the roll closed.  the tulle stretches a bit, so it holds things in place, but doesn't dent the fabric.

Then when everything is trussed up nice and snug, I slip the quilt into a cotton sack with draw strings.  I have made some of these sacks from muslin, but most often, I repurpose old pillow cases. There's a part of me that says a plastic bag would be better protection against disasters like rising sea levels and broken pipes, but everything I've read says plastic isn't such a good idea.

I have 4 quilts stored in this one bag, which is really too many, because the quilts are tightly packed.  It'd be better if I only had one or two quilts per bag.  Some how, making bags isn't as appealing to me as making a quilt, so I end up jamming too many into one bag.

When I ship quilts to quilt shows, I use this same method, and then put the bag with the quilt in a mailing tube, if possible, or a long skinny box, that I sometimes have to manufacture from a larger box with lots of packing tape.

Scaps and Bridal Tulle to make a Quilt Background.

I liked the image of the boots with leaves that I made for the SAQA Benefit Auction a few years back, so I decided to use the same design to make larger version.

The boots are made from fabric that I hand-dyed.  My actual boots are brown, but I hate brown and love purple.  To get the variation in color that I hoped would look like light reflecting off wet boots, I used the low-water immersion process with Procion dyes from Dharma.  Low-water immersion dyeing produces lots of variation in color throughout the fabric. I love that.

The leaves are fused on, as are the toes of the boots using Misty Fuse.

To get the bright blue stripes along the toe of the boots, I used Derwent  INKtense color blocks.  If you dampen the fabric, color it with the INKtense, and then heat set it with a hot iron, it is supposed to be color fast.  That certainly seems to be the case.  I never wash my quilts, but just hanging on walls, the InkTense colors I've used on other quilts seem to have maintained their rich. bright hues over the years.

I wanted a background that looked like grass, but that didn't detract from the boots.  I tried a number of "grassy" fabrics, but....yuck.  I finally settled on using a jillion slivers of scraps--mostly green, but also yellow, purple and beige.  To make the scraps skinny enough to look like grass,  I piled them on my cutting mat, and ran over them a million times with my rotary cutter.  Then I cut the fabric for my quilt backing--about 6 inches bigger all around than I intended my quilt to be, and I laid a piece of batting about the same size over that, heaped the scraps on the batting. The batting helped hold the scraps in place kind of like Velcro.

Next I layered a piece of black tulle over the whole background and pinned it in place about every two inches in all directions, and solidly along the edges so all those little pieces wouldn't fall out.   Stuff still tumbled out when I moved the piece to the sewing machine, but I just kept stuffing the scraps back in, and putting more pins in place. (the boots were NOT attached at this point.) I quilted the piece very tightly, as you can see in the photo below.  The lines of random quilting are about a quarter inch apart.

After stitching all those fraying little scraps between the tulle and batting, my sewing machine needed a MAJOR cleaning.

(NOTE:  that skinny little yellow trim on the toe of the boot is actually about an inch wide, but only an 1/16th to 1/8th inch or so is peeking out from the blue piece layered over it.   That is really the only way to manage small sliver-y accent pieces.)

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Once the background was stitched, I added the boots and pant legs, quilted them in place, and as my British husband would say, Bob's your uncle.  Then this piece joined the cue to await binding, a hanging sleeve, and a label.  Sigh.  Old habits die hard.

Glue, Fusibles, or Pins? That is the Question

Putting together a collaged quilt can be done in many ways.  Before sections make their way to the sewing machine everything has to be held together in some way.  There are those who swear by glue, others who use pins--thousands of pins like the amazing Merle Axelrad , and still others who are devotees of fusibles.  I have tried them all.

For me, glue wins the prize--and not just any glue, but Elmer's Washable School Glue.

I have tried glue sticks, and Aleene's Tacky Glue, but Elmer's School Glue--NOT regular Elmer's--works best for me.    I found glue sticks way too messy, and Aleene's Tacky Glue way too sticky.  When Aleene's Glue sets it is there to stay, which can be a good thing, but I change my mind a lot.  I need something that holds all those little pieces  together, but that can be pulled apart without fraying or distorting the fabric.

Also, if I accidentally splodge glue in the wrong places--which I'm prone to do, Aleene's makes pretty permanent shiny spot, but Elmer's can be sponged off pretty easily.  I've heard that Elmer's School glue is not glue so much as a thickened starch, which is what makes it washable.

large section held together with glue only.

The piece hanging on my design wall is about a third of my quilt and at this point, only Elmer's glue is holding it together.  

small squeeze bottle with very small metal tip, sold by Amazon

Heat setting the glue is what makes it work.   I put a thin line of glue on the edge of the fabric (thinner than can be made with the bottle of glue itself) and I heat set it with a hot iron.

I bought this little bottle with the great nozzle on Amazon for a couple bucks.  I've been using it a couple years and it seems up to the task.  Some times I have to run a straight pin down the spout to clear out the dried glue, but that's the only issue I've ever had with it.  I like the control, and as you can see it takes very little glue to hold things securely.

I have tried using lots of different fusibles--Wonder Under, Misty Fuse, Soft Fuse, and found them all to be a pain in the neck.  Once you press fusible down, it is DOWN.  You will not be pulling that piece off without a disaster.  I've tried to not press anything until I had all my little pieces where I was sure I wanted them, but then I needed a million pins to keep things in place, which distorted the fabric, and made it harder to keep everything flat.  FLAT is what I want most. 

ALSO, as I pinned and moved the construction around, I wrinkled it.  YIKES! It's not FLAT!   So I'd press it without thinking...and attach hours of my work to my ironing board cover. Grrrr.

School Glue is made for fools like me.  It's easy to use, holds when you need it to, ease enough to take apart if needed, and can be cleaned up with water, plus it's cheap and available literally everywhere.